In Focus

• Art of Dying By Lakshen Sucameli
• Approaching Death By Swami Prem Sarito
• Learning to die while living By Swami Chaitanya Keerti
• Transcending Fear and Anxiety in Life and Death
  By Ma Prem Tao
• Death is not the enemy, it is the friend
  By Swami Satya Vedant
• On the subject of Death By Ma Deva Naisha
• Death – the great illusion By Ma Anand Bhagawati

I do remember very vividely that evening in Pune in April 1981.

I was sitting next to the swimming pool of the Blue Diamond Hotel with a small piece of paper I just collected in a small box inside the Ashram. At that time, when you were writing to Osho, the answer was received in such a way and, that evening, I had decided to go and read it at the hotel where my mother was staying.'

I just had brought her there, after a short visit in Italy in which I had been told by the doctors that she had only few months to live because of a cancer in her liver! When hearing that, I felt the responsibility to do all my best and ... THE BEST I COULD FIGURE IT OUT was to bring her with me to the Master.  Actually she wasn’t much interested in Him, but in making a trip with her only son to India seeing what he was doing in such a far away country, wearing those strange colours all the time ... and hopefully enjoying the adventure to take a plane for the first time in her life!!!

I was also hoping for something: maybe for a sort of miracle that could defeat those death’s declarations given by the doctors ... or, at least, for a delay of such limits who seem so hard to believe: 2 months? Why not 3, or 4, or ... But the hardest thing to deal with, was the unspoken truth between the two of us. In fact, when I went back to Italy after living in Pune more than a year, I realized she wasn’t ready to talk about that thing called death'!

Being used to live in such an environment like the Ashram was at that time when and where everybody was sharing everything with everyone   (and I don’t mean only by talking...), it wasn’t easy to avoid speaking about that reality with capital 'R'. But, even if I had the feeling that she was perfectly aware of the 'secret' revealed only to me by the doctors ... I was also aware that she didn’t want to acknowledge officially and I was respecting her choice.

Anyway, after we arrived to the place where I felt the possibility to plan each and every miracles due to the presence of the Greatest Magician on earth ...  I felt to unveil that secret taboo  but, before to do it, I asked to the Master Magician if and how to do it?!

So, with trembling hands, I opened the small piece of paper and I textually read: “Don’t say anything, but give her all your love!” Immediately my eyes filled with tears and I went to hide somewhere to avoid questions from the friends around.  In a split second ALL HERE AND NOW, the Master Magician sent me to a wider reality.'

 I had to accept that she was going to die: no matter if in 2 months or little longer... That reality was stronger than any possible wish of postponement and deeper than any sharing confrontation with a person not willing to have it. Now this indication can look 'spiritually incorrect' from a Master who speaks always about the 'cold truth' no matter what... but to me it was an existential device to move deeper in the core of the situation and dealing mainly out of love and compassion.

My mother died exactly two months later and she did it beautifully ... letting go herself in my arms when we went back to Italy. She wasn’t afraid to die, but a certain side of her never wanted to talk about it and, with Osho´s blessing, I respected that will!

As far I am concerned, if one day I will find myself in the same situation she was in... I will prefer to know it ´officially´ and talk about with anyone I´ll feelto.

But, in that case, I learned out of my personal experience and out of our beloved Master’s insight ... that there’s not just one fixed-correct way!

EVERY TIME AND SITUATION HAVE THEIR OWN TRUTH!!! 

Recently I got interested in Quantum Physics and I am fascinated by their discovery of the so called 'empty space' inside the matter. I am delighted to hear from the scientific point of view that matter and energy are not divided and actually harmoniously united at a deeper lever!

I think that, when these discoveries will become more 'popular', they will create the same cultural and humanistic revolution Galilean´s discovery did about the earth moving around the sun and not the other way around!!!  Once the so called 'void' will be accepted as our inner reality, we may lose a big part of fear about dying ... and when the inner connection between matter and energy will be teach in the schools all over the planet, maybe there will be a more mature understanding of life and death.

The contribution of Quantum Science to drop the taboo of death is enormous, but it has to be joined with the experience of Meditation as the Science that bridges the experience with the experiencer!

If and when that will happen ... maybe the people that are now avoiding their body  ending reality and cover that with all sort of attachment to material goods ... will feel more confident to start a search for something beyond matter. Maybe the people with an innocent heart, as my mother was, will also feel encouraged to confront officially with the secret of the secrets ... and who knows?!  They may get enlightened out of that confrontation! In any case, those who have even just a little taste of Osho´s teaching ... can help themselves and others towards such different approach: not only to death, but to life too.

Only by accepting the 'void' ... we can be able to discover the energy that is filling it!!!

Lakshen Sucameli

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I am probably closer to death than most of you and I would guess that I think about it more too. A Chinese Phrenologist, reading my head-bumps in Malacca 40 years ago told me I would die in my mid-eighties and I’m not far off. Most of his other prophesies have proved correct and this feels about right for me. Am I hypnotizing myself? Maybe, but since a near-death experience 15 years ago, I have come to be grateful for every additional year and hope to accept the final curtain whenever it decides to descend.

My environment is dying rapidly too. Living on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, once described as the most beautiful lake in the world has, in the last month produced a toxic cyano-bacterial algae that has covered it from shore to shore scaring away tourists and spreading panic amongst resident Gringos and Mayans alike. At least we can up and leave like we did with Poona One and the Ranch but the Mayans are stuck with it.

 I am fairly healthy but my bank account is looking pretty sick. I have no insurance and some of my income comes from the tourist hotel where I live. Usually at this time of year we have 30-40 guests and up to 80 at weekends. Right now we have maybe ten brave souls hanging out and things look bleak. I probably have enough money to last a couple more years.

Relative to these three approaching deaths, many of my contemporaries are leaving their bodies. Five good friends have gone to the Further Shore in the last couple of months and all way younger than me. “Viha Connection” obituaries are always a little scary as they often feature the departure of some sannyasin with whom I have had connections in the past. These farewells, the demise of my environment heralding the approaching suicide of Planet Earth and my financial condition echoing the current state of world banks make a clear statement. My life is close to an end.

Whoa!…that all looks pretty depressing but I and most of my friends here are still having a great time. We threw a big “Cheer Up” party Saturday night to chase the blues away and danced our buns off. It was kind of a message to all the prophets of doom, the negative pessimists who have been bringing us down. Heh…we pooped in the lake and Nature is getting it’s own back. Now we have to put all our energy into cleaning it up. As a matter of fact the lake looks much cleaner today, The flowers are out all over the hillsides, the sunsets are exquisitely beautiful and the New Moon and Evening Star are close together and shining bright. Cheer up – we’re not dead yet.

Fear of death is possibly the most heartbreaking stress we have to endure in life. Fostered by religions, pharmaceutical and insurance companies, advertising, the movie industry and everyone who stands to gain from putting the specter of death in front of gullible people, there is little chance of avoiding constant fear. Postponement seems to be the tool we use to avoid confrontation – a wait and see attitude.

Tilopa said…            
“The fool in his ignorance, disdaining the Mahamudra,
Knows nothing but struggle in the flood of Samsara.
Have compassion for those who suffer constant anxiety.”

Most people, myself included, who have had near-death experiences , report a grateful acceptance of an extraordinarily beautiful passing into another space. As Osho says. “The problem is not the Body. It’s the Mind.”
Ancient belief systems have Death as a scary skeleton coming to take us to an unknown, possibly spooky future depending on how we have behaved ourselves during this life. Awaiting the Day of Judgment is riddled with guilt. It took my mother six weeks to clean up her Karma and confess all her imaginary sins before she finally expired in innocence.
Osho spoke out for the Right to Die. In “The Heart Sutra” he suggests that every city has a Death Center, A Temple where people who’s death is imminent could go into deep meditation with their loved ones around them helping them to leave gracefully. Two books I have read recently put forth a wise, practical case for the decision to end our lives when they have become unbearable.  “Final Exit” by Derek Humphry and “Last Rights” by Marya Mannes make eloquent pleas for the dying and their right to a dignified death.

Isaac Azimov wrote,

“No decent human being would allow an animal to suffer without putting it out of it’s misery. It is only in human beings that we are so cruel as to allow them to live in pain, in hopelessness, in living death, without moving a muscle to help them.”

Religions, Laws and Tradition have no right to interfere with an individual’s choice to live or die. Some people want to eke out every second of life, no matter how grim, and that is their right. But others do not and that should be their right too. 
As Sannyasins we celebrate death as the very crescendo of life, the ultimate orgasm. Tonight while eating dinner on my own I read five descriptions of the experiences of Enlightenment by the Mother, Da Free John, U.G. and J. Krfishnamurti, and Osho in Yatri’s marvelous book “The Unknown Man”. Maybe I was reading it for the tenth time because it is such an inspiration. Each story is different and each appears to me to be a passionate, charismatic description of Death. A passage from the mundane to a state of bliss. To me Death of the Ego somehow relates to Death of the Being, What was common to all five was that there was no fear. All of these Realised Beings went into the process with total trust.
Maneesha, Veetman, Steven Levine and virtually all the therapists dealing with the phenomenon of Death agree that Trust is the key to passing through to the Further Shore in peace and dignity. So for me, while I can smile at Woody Allen’s comment “I’m not afraid of Death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens,” I do want to be there. I want to die laughing and experience what Osho calls the ultimate blossoming of Life.
           
“In death the whole life is summed up, in death you arrive. Life is a pilgrimage towards death. From the very beginning death is coming. From the moment of birth death has started moving towards you, you have started to move towards death.”

We might as well dig it….and savor the waiting.

Swami Prem Sarito

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December 11 is Osho's birthday. The disciples and friends will be celebrating the birthday of their beloved Master who was never born.

Osho left his body on 19 January and this date will be celebrated as Osho Mahotsav of Mahaparinirvana day. It will be now 20 years since he left his body. It is really befitting to celebrate the birthday and death day of someone who is never born and never died. An enlightened mystic, while he is in the body, lives in such a way as if he is not there. He does not exist as an ego. He does not in time. For him there's only an Eternal Now.

Before leaving the body, Osho told us: Never talk of me in the past tense. Being in the Eternal Now is his reality, that's what makes it worth celebrating. The birthdays and deathdays of all of us who live a life unconsciousness have really no meaning. The birthdays and deathdays of those enlightened ones who attained to the space of Eternal Now are reminders to us to meditate and move into this spacetime.

Here I would like to include one of Osho's letters to Ma Sohan, living in Pune. He wrote this letter to her over four decades ago.

Beloved Sohan

If you want to attain the divine, Learn to die. Have you not seen that when the seed dies, it becomes a tree?

Someone went to visit a Baul mystic. He was absorbed in singing his song. Neither his eyes seemed to be seeing this world, nor did it feel as if his soul was present. He was somewhere else – in some other world, in some other form. When his song stopped, and it seemed his consciousness was returning, the visitor asked, “How do you feel liberation can be attained?” The sweet-spoken mystic said. “Only by means of death.”

I said this to someone yesterday. He asked, “By death?” I said, “Yes, by death while living. Only one who dies to everything else, awakens and becomes alive to the divine.” There is no art greater than learning to die while living. I call that art: meditation.
OSHO

Swami Chaitanya Keerti

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The anticipation of December’s arrival seems to attract a deep inner-going movement, somewhat womb-like. For years, mostly when I lived in cold climates, I became more introverted, often gloomy in December and when I look at the poems I wrote during winter-time, they were pretty dark. Looking back, this magazine’s December 2008 issue also had Death as its subject, albeit a different perspective from this one. Winter with naked tree branches and snow flurries, shorter days and longer nights seems to naturally refocus one back inside into inner reflections. It’s a time to burrow in and get cozy, take stock and keep warm, to dive deeply, shed the unnecessary, and rest more.

Living in Hawaii however has completely dissolved this pattern, and now we can muse on death for 12 months a year – anytime in fact - without a calendared schedule.  In actual fact though, death and Life are becoming more and more interwoven in my life, that at times it’s difficult to distinguish which one is beginning and the other ending. Quite like Einstein’s taking Science outward to its penultimate point and beyond, and coming to a place of faith, awe and a religiousness.  Life to its fullest leads to a completion, to death and diving deeply into dying (in whatever way) brings you once again to new life.

The simplicity of the answer to the question of transcending fear of life and death is this; and although it’s totally personal to me, and my view I hope, beloved reader, that you will find a parallel. When I am living (myself) fully I have no fear of dying. I am so filled with life and fullness of being, so free, feeling connected and extended to all four corners of the earth and above. In fact in that moment I would welcome death. Were it to come at that precise instant, it would be such a joy and fulfillment at a peak’s point, with zero resistance to this transcendence and with my arms outstretched willingly, ecstatically, so blissed to be going now. I clearly recall living such exquisite moments. At such times, there is no life and there is no death. There is no separation and there is no difference.

When I think of where and when my fear and anxiety arise, it is at other moments
normally those that are feeling unsure, or restricted in some way, my energy holding back and firmly attached to all that is mortal. Missing in that moment, is awareness of this simply being another old, familiar, retrospective space seeking healing, and instead I am caught, believing it is true and who I am. And thus, suffering and fear results for as long as I am forgetting. The good part of this is that my stay in forgetfulness seems to be getting shorter and I owe this to the powerful awakening experiences that have also been happening. 

However a few weeks ago the perfect situation arose for giving an example here. It still haunts me somewhat, although gratefully lessening, so perhaps going through it here with you will help me gain new understanding that will fully free me.

Before I get to that story, I’d like to first talk about what I’m seeing happening globally with fear, death and specifically the fear of death. Yes, life and Hollywood have always been very much about living the American Dream and thwarting death and all steps (hinting) towards it.  But man is clearly processing all of this, these days, and the subject of death has broken through the old taboos of silence and denial.
 
Just turn on any channel on TV and see a scene from the coroner’s office in the mortuary. So people are now exposed to death and dead bodies galore on a daily basis. There are more shows on autopsies than almost anything else, apart from murder and crime and maybe the upcoming surge of Ghost Whisperer shows. Here you see the spirit of the person and we can see him or her and hear the message to be given, so people are now seeing en masse, the fact that the spirit does not die.

I watch with interest as to what the movies, the newspaper and the TV are doing, because they are the mediums reflecting what humanity is presently dealing with, where we have evolved to and the level of consciousness that is being brought to light. Kind of like the digging up and uncovering of archaeological finds, to see where a civilization was at that time. Now you just need to turn on the TV and you
can see what old conditioning, what karma, is being addressed and cleared out.
 
I see the other current (show) craze, that of plastic surgery and of tummy tucks and neck tucks and augmentations, as a sign of society’s desperation, the final, vainglorious attempt to resist and deny the natural aging process and face the fact of getting closer to an ending of life as they have known it. Of course it begins in L.A.   Hollywood is the mirror for glitz, glamour, and not only of compassionate, heartfelt and generous giving to causes, but of the penultimate ego and its layers; reflecting all of ours in neon lights, in gold, and in diamonds with a sense, false though it may be, of eternal life and eternal youth, and of having escaped the cycles of mere, ordinary mortals.  And even that old façade is fading somewhat.

All that glitters is notta always so hotta...

So now here is my story. 
Out of the blue I had a phone call from a smaller, albeit well known, national airline company. One of their sales and marketing people was on the island to select various vendors to promote in their travel guide, for the purpose of recommending them to their passengers. They were choosing only one wedding company for the entire island. So he was calling around to invite interested people to respond. I was immediately excited and arranged a meeting for the next morning, a day before he was to meet any of my colleagues.

He arrived, gave me the shpiel and it turns out that this is a brand new project with some good potential to open a whole new stream of clientele and increase business, which would be a good thing right now.
Some details didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but my energy was hopping around like crazy saying yes, yes, yes. I told him that I was very interested and needed though to check up on some things before signing on the dotted line. In the process that ensued during the next few hours, my mind kicked in.

Was this something I should jump into because my energy was saying so, and therefore never mind delving too much into checking into the practical side of things?  Was this yes, yes, yes, simply the fact that I’d be scooping the other companies, especially one relatively new, but hard-hitting competitor?

And was this the risk, the leap into a new, expansive and out-of-the-box direction that I had been waiting for? Should I follow my energy implicitly, a rule of thumb for me, and not be concerned about the $$$$ investment asked for, or clarify some details that were unclear, so as to have a better idea if this is a good move?  Maybe I should try to balance the two arenas? Be at least a little attentive to the practical as well as jumping in, as in: Trust in Allah and Tether my Camel. Yes that’s what I’ll do.  I had only a few hours in which to decide and I also had a wedding that day to focus on. 

 Listen to the energy. Never mind the mind.

All sorts of thoughts arose. Something I read in a Chinese astrology book how many years ago, suddenly came in clear as a bell.  The Snake Woman should not gamble with money. The memory of investing a few years ago and going for it because it felt right, and then losing $5,000 swirled back into my mind. Although I did not want to lose my money, I was not as worried about losing the money, as I was of how I would feel about myself if I did.

Thus I was plunged into 24 hr of hell, and putting aside the actual reason I was in this place, I could just as well have been making a decision that would mean my life or death, for that is how it felt. I agonized over it, as I felt that Spirit was bringing me an opportunity and I didn’t want to miss it. Yet….Was it really?

• Saying yes and thereby saying yes to life. Opening the door to a new opportunity, expansion and new dimension of ecstatic freedom.
• Saying no, and therefore saying no to going forward, remaining where I am, feeling limited. No felt like a shrinking back, afraid to take a risk, lacking courage -- my worst crime; and the most difficult place to accept within myself.
• Realizing that I was engaged in, lost in this struggle of the minds and energy, made it all the worse.

I am in the midst of selling my business and I thought that this contract would look very good indeed on the sales package and sweeten the pot, perhaps hasten the sale.
And were it to work well as promised and certainly hoped for, the amount of money invested would quickly become a moot point, with a booming new stream of business. I did check on some of the details given me, to corroborate them and they didn’t pan out.

So why wasn’t any of this helping?

Finally in the evening, a breakthrough. I got past the money. I don’t know what will happen but I have to find out. Let’s go for it! I lost already so much in the stock debacle, so what’s to say about this amount?  And with that decision, I felt elation and joy and I wanted to call everyone I knew and celebrate.  I called the airlines’ sales rep said yes and went happily, at last, to bed with a morning appointment set up to seal the deal.  I remembered Osho saying, better to make any decision, right or wrong, and just get out of that awful hellish place of indecision.  Done!

All night long, I tossed and turned. And I awoke in the morning with a huge feeling of dread in my belly.  I recalled then that when I decided to give that $5,000 years ago it was a good decision when I first made it, but then afterwards I had awful feelings of dread about it, which I ignored.  This time I would listen.

I called to cancel. Could not reach my sales rep. Could not even leave a message on his phone, so I called head office and reached his boss. Told him the story and he started wheeling and dealing with me, said I could pay a portion and then in 6 months if I’m satisfied with the business, then I could pay the balance. Sounded very reasonable on that level, but inside was screaming, nol no! no!  So I said no. And that was the end of it. 

Afterwards, not so much a feeling of completion, but rather glad a decision had been made and I did not wish to change it.  I still had a niggling, nagging feeling inside and did not know whether I missed a fabulous opportunity, or not; whether I had resisted Spirit’s assistance to open a new door for me out of fear, or not. My sense was that this whole upheaval was designed by the Master Choreographer, but is multi-faceted, a layered process, so not one size fits all, nor does one decision touch or resolve everything, whether or not it was even a correct decision. Did I shrink, hold back on a gift from Spirit? The little guiding voices inside say not, but if not, then what is this lingering feeling? I pulled cards and got the Ace Of Wands – Spirit pushing, invoking, catalyzing, vigorously, relentlessly stirring the fires within. You are not in control and the best you can do, all you can do, is go moment by moment.

What is left in the embers from that event, is an even more acute desire to fully live and trust everything; drop out again from the status quo part of my makeup as a motivator and inspiration for my actions and flow with what is, whether I like it or not, whether it’s pleasant or not. Something got cleaned out and I feel simplified, less ambitious, less driven, more here. Is this good? And is it good for business?  We’ll see. One thing for sure, it’s good for the business that I have come to perfect, the dissolving and reawakening of Tao.

Chaitanya Bharti, death is always close by. It is almost like your shadow. You may be aware, you may not be aware, but it follows you from the first moment of your life to the very last moment. Death is a process just as life is a process, and they are almost together, just like two wheels of a bullock cart. Life cannot exist without death; neither can death exist without life.

Our minds have an insane desire: we want only life and not death. We don’t look at the existential truth, we always cling to our own insane desire. Any desire that goes against nature is insane. And this desire is in almost every living creature, not only human beings. Even the trees are afraid of death, but trees can be forgiven. They are not conscious beings, they are only unconscious – fast asleep.

But you are a little bit awake: you can sense the presence of death. Hence the possibility opens for a deeper understanding, that life and death are all together, two extremes of one energy. Life is the active force and death is the inactive force. Life is the positive electricity and death is the negative electricity, but they cannot be separated.

You are saying, “When I was coming for discourse, my heart was trembling with fear; I felt as if I was going to die.” Those who are aware that death is possible at any moment – the very next moment and you may be gone – this awareness is going to help you to live this moment as deeply as possible, because death can cut your roots without informing you, without any previous intimation that “I am coming.” It simply comes. You know only when it has happened. But it is not the greatest misery. The greatest misery is when there was the chance and the opportunity, you did not live – you went on postponing.

Life is an opportunity. Death is the end of the rope. If you understand death your life will become intense and total. But instead of understanding death, you become overwhelmed by it. Hence the heart starts trembling with fear. And fear is not going to help at all, fear is going to cloud your mind even more. Out of fear, there has never been any understanding.

So whenever you feel fear, it is a tremendous opportunity to understand that life is momentary, it is ephemeral, it is made of the same stuff as dreams are made of. How real the dream looks when you are asleep – in fact, more real than your experiences when you are awake. You may never have thought about it, but while you are awake you can doubt: “Perhaps what I am seeing may be just a dream.” I may be a dream, you may be a dream, this whole communion may be happening just as a dream. Soon you will be awake and you will find, “My God! It was just a dream.”

There is the possibility when you are awake to suspect, to doubt the reality that surrounds you. But when you are asleep, you cannot even doubt the existence of the dream. It is so real, it is more real than reality. Have you ever doubted any dream, thinking that perhaps what you are seeing is a dream? The moment you doubt, you are awake, and the dream is immediately finished. The dream can remain there only if you are totally asleep, so deep that no doubt, no suspicion, can arise in you.

But to those who have understood both life and death as nothing but two aspects of one reality, the dream and the so-called reality of your waking consciousness are not basically different. Just as in the morning you wake up and the dream life is finished, one day in death you wake up into another reality and all that was real up to then – for seventy years – becomes just a dream. Not even a trace of it is left anywhere in your consciousness.

Death is a constant reminder that, “I can come any moment. Be prepared.” And what is the preparation? The preparation is: live life so totally, so intensely, be so aflame with it that when death comes there is no complaint, there is no grudge. You are absolutely ready because you have lived life so totally, you have known all its mysteries – there is no point in living anymore. Death has come exactly at the right time, when you may have thought to die yourself. I call that death perfect which comes at the moment when you yourself may have thought, “It is enough.”

Death comes and you understand that life has been lived totally, so now there is no point to go on breathing and go on waking and sleeping unnecessarily – because nothing new is going to happen. Now everything is past and there is no future. In such a moment, death is a welcome guest. And unless you are ready to welcome death, know well that you have missed life. Those who feel sadness and fear about death are the people who have missed the train. But in our unconsciousness, we are all continuously missing the train. The train is moving every moment, just in front of you, but somehow you go on missing…..
 
….But as long as you are alive, the possibility of death is absolutely certain. Only the timing is not certain. But the happening is absolutely certain. What does it matter whether you die after seven days or seven years or seventy years? One thing is certain: that you are going to die. Life is not something that you can go on missing. Otherwise at the moment of death, you will feel the greatest misery and pain, the deepest agony, from missing the whole opportunity that was given to you.

And existence gives so abundantly, it is not miserly. You are just not alert enough to use the opportunity to transform yourself into something immortal, eternal, into some experience which will make you beyond the reach of death. Just fearing death is not of any help. If you see that death is following you, it is time to start searching deeper into yourself for that point which is beyond death. We have been calling that point satchitanand: the truth of your being, the ultimate consciousness of your life and the tremendous blessing of your coming to flower.

You are also saying that as you sat in the discourse you felt “an infinite joy from some unknown source.” There is nothing mysterious about it. You came to the discourse trembling, overwhelmed by the fear of death, and here you saw laughter and music and you became one with the commune. You forgot your tiny ego and its fear of dying. You fell into deep harmony with all who are present here.

This harmony is the source of your joy, not any unknown source. This harmony is the source of your infinite joy, and this harmony is also the source of your deep feeling of love for me.

It is not something unknown, it is something very clear, you just have to be a little more conscious. Then this clarity will give you all the clues to things that go on happening in your being, but you don’t know from where they come, where they are going. Everything seems to be a misunderstanding. But out of harmony, out of love, out of joy, arises understanding.

Excerpted from Sat Chit Anand

Ma Prem Tao

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Seeing my beloved mother's body lying lifeless when I was eight years old, was when I first ever saw death. And yet, looking at a rather faint smile on her serene and beautiful face I still could not accept she was no more. Ever since then I have never had any particularly fearsome or negative feeling about seeing a dead person. It also became clear to me that, death may become a public event when we see a dead body or read obituaries, nevertheless, it is essentially a very private affair. Osho has brought it to our attention that, there are two experiences which are strictly private or personal in nature which no one else can share: death and dreams; no two individuals can dream the same dream and no two individuals can die the same death. No one else can dream for me and no one else can die for me.

It is interesting to see the cognitive understanding of death in the West which works on the premise that, A equals A which essentially is a static concept and not a dynamic one and hence does not accept the very fundamental phenomenon working in the universe which is that of change, of flux. Out of this premise, A=A, follows the notion of A versus not A -- the either-or way of thinking. It is a dualistic perception which ultimately leads into even worse kind of thinking and that is, taking the not-A as identical to anti-A. Such as, for example, "whosoever is not against communism is for it." The phenomenon of life and death are thus seen in the Western view as opposed to each other, as mutually exclusive. In this view, death is taken as an object of fear; it is a taboo, one wants to avoid talking about it. As a professor of religion once said, "now sex is openly discussed and dying is obscene."

A logical corollary of all this is that death is seen as closely associated with evil, negative; life and death are viewed in conflict with each other. The Aristotelian logic has contributed much in this either-or way of thinking. The result is that more and more value is laid upon being young, hiding old age, being defensive and apologetic about old age -- in its extreme sense it has as if become a sin to be old.

The Eastern concept of death is dynamic; it is based on the holistic way of seeing the reality of death. It works on the premise that, A equals A plus more; A is related to many other things. Because, the Eastern view is, nothing is absolute in the universe, everything is essentially relative and hence everything is in motion. Modern physics, medicine, the interdisciplinary approach to the social sciences -- all are now recognizing the validity and significance of thinking in terms of "both-and" rather than "either-or."

Osho puts across this Eastern vision so clearly, when he explains: life and death are part of one larger life, the cosmic life...Each time we inhale, we live; when we exhale the breath, we die. But both are functioning in harmony. In fact, we start dying right from the moment of conception; we are growing towards death. A seed grows into a flower but we don't see both being against each other -- we call it growth. Birth also grows into death. Osho makes the following profound statement for us to understand the mystery of death:

"Life and death are two aspects of existence, simultaneously happening together. Ordinarily, you have been taught to think of death as being against life. Death is not against life -- life is not possible without death. Death is the very ground on which life exists. Death and life are like two wings: the bird cannot fly with one wing, and the being cannot be without death. So the first thing is a clear understanding of what we mean by death

"Death is an absolutely necessary process for life to be. It is not the enemy, it is the friend. And it is not there somewhere in the future, it is here, now. It is not going to happen, it has been always happening. Since you have been here it has been with you. With each exhalation it happens -- a little death, a small death -- but because of fear we have put it in the future.

"The mind always tries to avoid things which it cannot comprehend, and death is one of the most incomprehensible mysteries. There are only three mysteries: life, death and love. All these three are beyond mind."
OSHO
Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter-8

Swami Satya Vedant

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One of the most valuable life lessons I have learned is “Surrender”.  To ‘give up’.  But not in a huffy, petulant way.  In a loving, living moment to moment, accepting way.  Surrendering, giving up to the Higher Power (or whatever else we choose to call It).  So I surrender to death NOW.  Now? Because why wait?  Now, don’t get me wrong...

I am really having WAY too much fun to die right now…I have just started a new life in Paradise with my longed for, miracle daughter…I love teaching yoga, I love performing my one woman play, doing voiceover work, networking, teaching peace, writing every month for our beloved Osho and much more.  Do you think I want to go now, just before the show really starts?  No, I categorically do not want to die right now….please…take someone who does….

The thing is, we never know when it is going to be “our turn”…when we will be harvested by the Grim Reaper! Blimey, not surprising we are all terrified of dying!  Sack that PR!

I don’t need to order my coffin and book a plot to prepare for my own death, all I have to do is surrender to it now.  Let it be whenever, wherever and however.

When my darling Daddy died, from smoking 300 cigarettes per week for 40 years, I seemed to be chased and dragged through the gamut of emotions from unparalleled deep sadness to uncontrollable fury, irrational and embarrassing laughter, through peace and joy to acceptance… and finally surrender. This whole process took me about 15 years!
I had to surrender to it in the end because that is what it was.  He was dead and still is.  I could fight it for the rest of my life, but it wouldn’t bring him back. 

When I first arrived in Hollywood in the eighties, for a little while I was living in the Family Fitness Center Gym in Beverly Hills (another story!). I got one of my first modeling jobs in Los Angeles for Auto Expo, the amazing car show at the downtown LA Convention Center, through a guy who also happened to be working out at 5am at the same gym.  His girlfriend got me a job representing the 1932 Duesenberg, part of the Harrah (Reno) Classic Car Collection; I had to learn a 3-page speech about overhead cam shafts and my gown was a beautiful, beaded flapper outfit which I was reluctant to return, but did get to wear to a concert at the Wilshire Theatre on the way home one evening…yes, I was the one being dropped off by the downtown to Santa Monica bus when everyone else was arriving in limos!  I met a lot of models over that time, especially one who I will name Angela.  Not so much for her privacy, but because I can’t remember her real name.  Maybe she was working for Jaguar? Anyway, I liked her and getting to know her over the weeks of the convention she emerged as a sweet and delicate but mostly angry and frightened woman…frightened of the dark, of LA, of spiders, frightened of everything and for some reason particularly frightened of being murdered and thrown in a dumpster.  It must have become her passion, her career, her unconscious ‘goal’.  So, when she achieved that goal, leaving her contemporaries in a state of shock at the news that she had indeed been raped and murdered and thrown in a dumpster, it occurred to me that maybe she had (unconsciously) planned her own death.

Personally, I’d rather go out in my sleep aged 110, after a delightful Sunday lunch fit as a fiddle, delightfully happy with all my family around me… after dessert and coffee, maybe a small liqueur and a few rounds of backgammon…can I make that my ‘Death Plan’ please, just like Angela ‘planned’ hers? Like the Hollywood star Bing Crosby who died a very old, tired, yet happy man after a rather excellent round of golf.  Maybe he decided that was how he would like to go and BAM! Your wish is My command!

So when I foresee my own death, if I really am in control of my own destiny in life, I can surely control to some vague extent, my own death?  I mean I don’t know where it will happen or when, but the primary question for me is ‘then what?”.  Who really knows, but maybe, if one fears dying and ‘afterlife’, they will find themselves in a fearful, terrifying place….if they think they will find themselves at a Golden Gate in the Clouds with St Peter taking inventory….maybe that is where they will find themselves…if one dies filled with guilt and remorse, what else would hell be? If one assumes they will just rot in the earth...then maybe they will.  What harm will it do if I paint a picture of my own afterlife being warm and friendly, a bountiful and unspoiled Paradise with all the people I loved in life around me ready to party?

Osho said “Once death is accepted, nothing can frustrate you”.  What is there to be afraid of if we can see our own afterlife as nothing but beautiful?  We are always telling ourselves and each other when someone else dies that they have gone to a ‘better, pain-free place’ and we believe it…why not for ourselves?

We are all going to die, that is for sure.  As soon as we are born we begin to slowly, or not so slowly, die.  Our first breath is just the precursor to the last.  It is the part in between that is the gift that has been given to us to make the most of.  Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end.  The middle is up to us to make an interesting read for ourselves, full of adventure, travel, love, sex, car chases and lazy days on the beach.  Full of living and ‘practice deaths’…the death of our own childhood, adolescence, love affairs, family and friends.

So if I did die now, at least I would know that I have already had a very good innings, 55 not out.  When it is our turn, why not embrace it? Get into it! If you are going to do something, do it well! Die well my friends! Love Always Naisha

Ma Deva Naisha, BSYA (C.I.)

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Deep within us all nestles the knowing that consciousness is eternal. This knowing challenges any fear concerning the eventual death of the physical body. As the petals of a flower fall at the end of its bloom only to come back as a bud in due course, so does the body appear and disappear.

As a child, I laughed when I heard one of my aunts had died. The entire grieving scene, the sad faces, the muted tones, the drab black clothes were inexplicable to me. Something didn’t make sense. When I investigated, I was told to shut up and banned from attending to the funeral.

A little older, I decided that should I die, I wouldn’t be put in a coffin and buried six feet under. I found that extremely distasteful. Much later, when I watched bodies of sannyasin friends being cremated at the burning ghats on the banks of the Mula Mutha River in Pune, my heart understood. There was a tangible joy, the sense of the soul being released from the physical body, soaring among the flames to the sky.  And nothing was lost. Consciousness was there, ready to play a different game, to come into bloom yet another time …
 
Most religions have made death look like a severe punishment. A penalty for a life not lived according to stingy and petty rules. And even worse, after death there would be purgatory and hell and torture! The priests support a death cartel and have everybody under their thumbs to exert their questionable powers. And one of their most sinister armaments is spreading fear.

No wonder that the mere thought of death is something to be avoided at all cost. No wonder some severely ill people even pay fortunes to have their bodies frozen and stored, so they can be resurrected one day when there is a cure.  And what will they do – in case this actually works – when there is a new disease threatening them? And what will they do when their bodies are thawed and they are facing life on the planet a hundred years from now? The mind can come up with such incredible nonsense …

There’s a list of fears no doubt every human can draw up easily. Of course we need to distinguish between a purely physical fear when the body reacts to imminent danger such as being run over by a truck, and the faceless fear that is a figment of our mind and has nothing to do with the here-now. I’ve had my share of experiencing fear that my mind concocted and witnessed the humiliating and crippling sensations that came with it. But a day came when I realized that all I had to do was to look at what I labeled ‘fear’ and see this ‘fear’ for what it was. Just another illusion or projection on the stage of life, and by not allowing this mirage to settle into the various body layers where it would fester, it simply evaporated!

Fear of death is there for all those consumed by false guilt broadcast by all religions. Once you start to live your own religion, your own principles, and your actions are initiated by love, fear of death disappears and one is ready to leave this body with happiness whenever the call comes, without trying to avoid, postpone or cheat it.

Osho said, “One of the fundamentals of sannyas is: Go on dropping your fear, don't waste time. Enjoy life so totally that there is no space left for fear. And I give you the guarantee that even when death comes, you will not be afraid; your whole life-long training in fearlessness will not allow you to be afraid of death. On the contrary, you will feel excited because you are moving into an unknown space.”
OSHO
The Razor’s Edge, Chapter 26, Question 2

To quote from ‘The Razor’s Edge’ is apt. Since I have become Osho’s sannyasin my life has been a dance along that very edge. Every morning I am ready to jump into the day’s uncharted waters and live what comes my way to the hilt! And if it is death that comes my way, I will dance along with that too and remember,

“There is no death. Death is the greatest illusion there is, the greatest myth – a lie. For even a single moment, if you can see that you are deathless, then no meditation is needed. Then live that experience, then act out of that experience, and the doors of eternal life are open for you.”
OSHO
Ancient Music in the Pines, Chapter 5

Ma Anand Bhagwati

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